Oh there's plenty of explanations for the politics tab. Inbreeding, trolls, retards who drank the kool-aid at their respective party's convention, and idiots that believe that any politician has the nation's best interests at heart.

I doubt highly (and studies have shown this) that building more schools, lowering t/s ratio, increasing teacher salaries, and making supplies and resources more available will make children better students. It makes you able to better educate them, yes- but a child with a laptop, $1000 worth of textbooks and the teachers to help them with these things won't automatically make them a better "student" than the kid without.

You can lead a horse to water, etc. The impetus and desire to achieve an education has to be instilled by parents. A teacher will rarely be able to force that into a child. If you give a child a fancy laptop for a school that he doesn't have any interest in, how much time do you think will be spent on that laptop for educational purposes?

I'm not saying our education system isn't underfunded, but simply increasing the S sub M will not fix everything. Your "broken" metaphor doesn't work either way- if the school system is fundamentally "broken", how will increased spending (and only increased spending) fix it? If it's not "broken", why should more money be spent on "repairs"?

By saying that this "fact" is incorrect, TFauthor is saying that simply throwing money at education will not make kids better students. Do you disagree with that?

Increasing spending on its own will not increase results. increasing spending in the right way will increase results. Increased spending and more teachers are needed to imporve edication, but you also need to imporve student motivation, and improve the ciriculum so as to convey the imformation better.However if you increase spending and it all goes to the sports teams then you will not get any results.

there is also the problem that people are going to look for results to fast, the problem with teachers is that over working them from to many students burns them out and causes them to stop caring. It will take years for them to "recover" if they ever do afterwards.

spending more money is not the solution, spending more money in the right way is almost always a solution for an issue.

If a fact can be verified first hand with a direct measurement or observation, then it's probably correct.

If a fact is built from statistical research of large sets then it could change or be off by some amount.

If a fact is built from small samples with small effects then it's probably inconclusive in the long run.

If a fact is built from expert opinion then you need to consider how qualified the expert is. Oh, and sometimes they lie, like Pauling and vitamin C as a cold cure. He just rolled his Nobel into a cheap placebo that most people needed more of anyways.

Anything below this level should be considered anecdote and subject to review.

Dinosaurs were cold-blooded. Increased K-12 spending and lower pupil/teacher ratios boost public school student outcomes. Most of the DNA in the human genome is junk. Saccharin causes cancer and a high fiber diet prevents it. Stars cannot be bigger than 150 solar masses.

Oh, look, the threadshiatter is here...great. What LOOKED like it may have been an interesting conversation will now be reduceed go to the Confirmation Bias Troll and the morans who respond to him. Farking hell...

Speaking of Confirmation Bias Troll:

Originally posted by Ishkur, with modifications by me.

I see IDW is in the thread and will probably hang around and badger people. I've prepared a disclaimer for these occasions:

IDW is, essentially, the ultimate troll (with the only difference being that he's not a deliberate one). He's not interested in discussion -- he just wants to dick you around.

His MO is to seize control of the discussion and keep it, and the most basic way to do this is to withhold information from others and never acquiesce to any questions, comments or requests. By claiming some hidden truth that is beyond everyone's insight but keeping it undefined, he places himself in a role as Teacher or Guru or whatever fantasy Authority he imagines himself as. He doesn't mind arguing in his own backyard, but he'd much prefer to constantly hop from backyard to backyard, forcing you to chase him through separate, discordant arguments and fallacies of distraction. If you corner him, he'll usually chop your post up into little pieces and then reply to each piece individually with one these responses:

1) a question attacking your line of questioning, turning it back on you2) a sarcastic snipe at the subject and/or you (sometimes with image attached) or3) a loaded and nonsensical analogy which includes one or more of the following: a dodge, misdirection, or introduction of additional and usually irrelevant subject matter

And then the chase begins again. There's no knowledge or wisdom to gain here (from either you or him) and he has no insights to impart. His questions have no purpose. He just wants to control you and force you to jump through his hoops that he will constantly move around on you so that you fail and he can claim superiority. You are wasting your time.

For an example, in this 3 year old thread he concocted a logic game similar to the wason selection test with rules that he could change at any time for any reason, foisted it upon the thread, toyed with the posters for a whole day while refusing to give the answer, and then eventually concluded that everyone was wrong.

It's part of his technique to constantly assume Authoritarian control. He gets off on giving people challenges and quests with no point other than so he can withhold the non-existent answers from them (like his "True Definition of Nature" theory -- he poses this riddle to everyone but there's no answer. He just enjoys watching people struggle, as evidenced by his refusal to accept or debate the basic dictionary definition of the word). It's the old schoolyard power trip: "I know something you don't and I won't tell you what it is".

That he's been doing this schtick for so long is an indication that he will never stop and there's nothing new to be garnered from him, like he's stuck in a perpetual feedback loop, recycling the same arguments in every thread pertinent to his special brand of Christian theology (he's probably already posted the Wason test that he so infamously failed at solving many years ago. It's his way of dealing with the embarrassment by mocking it).

Despite the fact that he frequently loses these discussions, he'll continue posting them as if they're unsolvable, ignoring repeated and consistent replies defeating them. He has never been the type to swallow his pride and admit when he's wrong so you'll never get anywhere with him (and he'll always mock you if you try). It is very likely that he has NPD and people replying to him on Fark is how he strokes his ego so he can never stop no matter how many humiliating threads send him down in flames.

In short: He is a complete and total waste of your god damn time. Reply at your peril; I suggest ignore.

It could, but it would be eclipsed by the effect the parents have on their kids. The rich kids do well not because their parents are rich but because they are motivated. That motivation leads to wealth and the motivation gets passed down to the kids.